The SSD Megathread - Don't buy OCZ/Toshiba, Kingston, or Crucial drives, read the OP

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The SSD Megathread - Don't buy OCZ/Toshiba, Kingston, or Crucial drives, read the OP

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Absorbs Smaller Goons: Mar 16, 2006

JAY ZERO SUM GAME posted:

The Tech Report updated their SSD endurance test after 22TB. Nothing of note so far. They'll report again after another 78GB

http://techreport.com/review/25320/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-22tb-update

I dont get it. Why is the Samsung 840 Pro constantly at the bottoms of their benchmarks, and the HyperX 3K at the top? Does it have nothing to do with performance? I know this is an endurance test, but I have both drives, and the Samsung 840 Pro was recommended to me because it is one of the fastest on the market, and it feels faster thand the HyperX 3K.

What am I missing?

# ? Sep 13, 2013 19:01

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 13:51

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Absorbs Smaller Goons posted:

I dont get it. Why is the Samsung 840 Pro constantly at the bottoms of their benchmarks, and the HyperX 3K at the top? Does it have nothing to do with performance? I know this is an endurance test, but I have both drives, and the Samsung 840 Pro was recommended to me because it is one of the fastest on the market, and it feels faster thand the HyperX 3K.

What am I missing?

Anandtech had similar results with their 'destroyer' benchmark

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7173/samsung-ssd-840-evo-review-120gb-250gb-500gb-750gb-1tb-models-tested/7

Basically you're looking at worst-case, write-heavy performance. It's not a real simulation of day to day use, where you might only write 10-20GB in a single day. It ends up favoring drives with active garbage collection (Sandforce drives like the Sandisk HyperX)

The Samsung drives easily out-perform the Sandisk HyperX on the old benchmark which isn't nearly as heavy-duty.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7173/samsung-ssd-840-evo-review-120gb-250gb-500gb-750gb-1tb-models-tested/10

# ? Sep 13, 2013 19:17

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Absorbs Smaller Goons posted:

I dont get it. Why is the Samsung 840 Pro constantly at the bottoms of their benchmarks, and the HyperX 3K at the top? Does it have nothing to do with performance?

What am I missing?

The numbers that show the baseline performance, in which the 840 Pro is universally faster than the HyperX. The HyperX gets faster after some "break in", but it starts out much slower.

quote:

I know this is an endurance test, but I have both drives, and the Samsung 840 Pro was recommended to me because it is one of the fastest on the market, and it feels faster thand the HyperX 3K.

An 840 Pro only "feels" faster than a HyperX in your mind. If I stole yours and replaced it with a HyperX, you wouldn't be able to tell until you looked at the device manager. Because you can't time things in the milliseconds by "feel".

The conclusion to the 22TB update: a Kingston HyperX is a great drive if you're in a race to see who is fastest to 22TB of sustained writes. Decide for yourself how useful that isolated fact is.

# ? Sep 13, 2013 19:24

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Klyith posted:

The conclusion to the 22TB update: a Kingston HyperX is a great drive if you're in a race to see who is fastest to 22TB of sustained writes.

At 20GB/day, that over 3 years of writes to hit 22TB.

# ? Sep 13, 2013 19:28

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Klyith posted:

An 840 Pro only "feels" faster than a HyperX in your mind. If I stole yours and replaced it with a HyperX, you wouldn't be able to tell until you looked at the device manager. Because you can't time things in the milliseconds by "feel".

While it's true that there isn't a perceptible difference between decent SSDs most of the time, it's kind of crazy to say that there won't be workloads that make the differences between drives obvious. The 840 Pro is twice as fast at incompressible writes so there are going to be times where that can't be missed.

Bob Morales posted:

At 20GB/day, that over 3 years of writes to hit 22TB.

Note that you do need to account for write amplification, if you save 20GB to the drive more than 20GB gets written to flash. So probably more like 2 years if the drives aren't too full and TRIM works.

Alereon fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Sep 13, 2013

# ? Sep 13, 2013 19:36

BlackMK4: Aug 23, 2006; wat.; Megamarm

I have a Samsung 120GB Evo on a 2009 iMac... am I just tapping out the SATA2 bus here? The machine is running off the SSD being tested, as well.

# ? Sep 13, 2013 21:45

Xenomorph: Jun 13, 2001

The "upgrade some lady's Pentium 4 system with a SanDisk Extreme SSD" project worked amazingly well. She's never seen a computer move so fast. Firefox loads almost before she even finishes clicking.

# ? Sep 13, 2013 22:06

HalloKitty: Sep 30, 2005; Adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast

Xenomorph posted:

The "upgrade some lady's Pentium 4 system with a SanDisk Extreme SSD" project worked amazingly well. She's never seen a computer move so fast. Firefox loads almost before she even finishes clicking.

It is basically retarded how many millions of machines have been considered too slow and ditched because of one component, the hard drive.

# ? Sep 13, 2013 22:30

Elderbean: Jun 10, 2013

Is there anything comparable to the Samsung 840 Pro that isn't as expensive?

# ? Sep 13, 2013 23:24

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

BlackMK4 posted:

I have a Samsung 120GB Evo on a 2009 iMac... am I just tapping out the SATA2 bus here? The machine is running off the SSD being tested, as well.

Yup, SATA 2 maxes at 300 MB/s theoretical, and real world is always going to be slower (though the OSX drivers might also be shaving a bit off the top, I think on windows with intel drivers it can get a little closer to the limit).

The good news: since you have the 120gb version, it's not leaving that much performance on the floor. Sustained write speed on the 120 is only a bit more than 400 MB/s, versus over 500 for a 250gb.

Alereon posted:

While it's true that there isn't a perceptible difference between decent SSDs most of the time, it's kind of crazy to say that there won't be workloads that make the differences between drives obvious. The 840 Pro is twice as fast at incompressible writes so there are going to be times where that can't be missed.

But how often is that a thing? It has to be very large, incompressible writes from ram. Unless I have a second SSD as a data source, either can write data faster than a hard drive can read it. Compressed or uncompressed. I've been trying to think of things and haven't come up with a lot. Saving really big images from photoshop (or similar), but that's multi-100s mb psds, not ordinary pictures. Editing HD video might do the trick.

I'm not trying to say the differences are meaningless, I'm just finding it very interesting overlap between concrete measured data and the psychology of perception. Absorbs Smaller Goons's reaction to those benchmarks was clearly more about what's in his head than his hardware. I'd be fascinated to do double-blind experiments about this kind of thing.

# ? Sep 13, 2013 23:32

Aphrodite: Jun 27, 2006

Elderbean posted:

Is there anything comparable to the Samsung 840 Pro that isn't as expensive?

The Chronos Deluxe is usually the cheapest good option.

# ? Sep 14, 2013 00:21

GrizzlyCow: May 30, 2011

Aphrodite posted:

The Chronos Deluxe is usually the cheapest good option.

Or SanDisk Extreme.

# ? Sep 14, 2013 01:00

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Klyith posted:

But how often is that a thing? It has to be very large, incompressible writes from ram. Unless I have a second SSD as a data source, either can write data faster than a hard drive can read it. Compressed or uncompressed. I've been trying to think of things and haven't come up with a lot. Saving really big images from photoshop (or similar), but that's multi-100s mb psds, not ordinary pictures. Editing HD video might do the trick.

I'm not trying to say the differences are meaningless, I'm just finding it very interesting overlap between concrete measured data and the psychology of perception. Absorbs Smaller Goons's reaction to those benchmarks was clearly more about what's in his head than his hardware. I'd be fascinated to do double-blind experiments about this kind of thing.

The best example will be system shutdown, because when you "shut down" a modern system you actually cause it to reboot, write a hibernation file, then enter standby. I'm not saying there's an obvious difference to a casual user, but if you know what to pay attention to you SHOULD notice a difference between the fastest, most expensive drive on the market and a more mid-range model. When some performance metrics are a 2X difference this doesn't seem to be the best example of performance differences being in someone's mind. Not that that difference is worth paying for by any means, I've long said that the Samsung 840 Pro was a lot more drive than most people need, but it exists.

# ? Sep 14, 2013 02:06

Binary Badger: Oct 11, 2005; Trolling Link for a decade

HalloKitty posted:

It is basically retarded how many millions of machines have been considered too slow and ditched because of one component, the hard drive.

No kidding, I've converted several folks with shitcan ancient laptops (Dell Inspiron 9600s, HP dv8000s, assorted older Toshibas) running XP to laptops that boot faster than some modern netbooks with drives like this.. A little on the expensive side since its IDE and they're probably out of production but worth it to put life back into older laptops.

# ? Sep 14, 2013 05:42

voltron: Nov 26, 2000; Zapf gave me this account because he's a friend of the Indian-American people.

I just threw an Evo 250 in my aging Asus U45JC. The benchmark looked ridiculous (RAPID enabled, haven't done the benchmark with it disabled yet), so not sure if that's a reliable measurement. I'm also on SATA3.

Coming from a Seagate 320 Hybrid:

Samsung Magician Benchmark:

Crystal Mark:

code:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2 x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : [url]http://crystalmark.info/[/url]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

           Sequential Read :  1718.414 MB/s
          Sequential Write :  2611.332 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :  2262.046 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :  2512.804 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :   232.537 MB/s [ 56771.6 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :   154.856 MB/s [ 37806.6 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   192.035 MB/s [ 46883.7 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   199.679 MB/s [ 48749.8 IOPS]

  Test : 500 MB [C: 55.7% (129.8/232.8 GB)] (x1)
  Date : 2013/09/13 18:53:48
    OS : Windows 7 Professional SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

# ? Sep 14, 2013 14:24

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

Do we have a thumb drive thread? Or can I just ask in here. My 8GB thumb drive is having issues writing at a speed that is useful. Is there a particular brand that stands out as quality? I seem to be reading not-negative things about Sandisk drives but the market is really scattered. I just want a 16GB stick that does 100mb/s read/write for under $20 shipped, is that possible?

# ? Sep 14, 2013 21:02

redeyes: Sep 14, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Hadlock posted:

Do we have a thumb drive thread? Or can I just ask in here. My 8GB thumb drive is having issues writing at a speed that is useful. Is there a particular brand that stands out as quality? I seem to be reading not-negative things about Sandisk drives but the market is really scattered. I just want a 16GB stick that does 100mb/s read/write for under $20 shipped, is that possible?

Get a Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 memory stick. The 16GB one I have can write at around 50-60MB/s and read over 100MB/s.

# ? Sep 14, 2013 23:16

Psimitry: Jun 3, 2003; Hostile negotiations since 1978

So is there a method of testing a Samsung 840 pro drive to ensure it's working correctly? (like a version of WDtools or IBM Drive Fitness test for SSDs)

I have noticed that my SSD isn't running nearly as fast as I would expect it to do so. Additionally, it has some strange bugs that I can't really explain (file corruption apparently - I've had to run the Windows 7 Startup repair twice since doing a fresh install). I've also had some corrupted game files that had to be restored. Thought it might be memory related, so I ran a full 24 hours in Memtest86+ without an error. Running a 24 hour cycle of prime95 yielded no errors (that I could tell - I confess I probably wouldn't know how to determine if there's a problem there).

Running an AMD Athlon 2 760 (don't laugh - I got it dirt cheap (yes, it was new)).

Edit: Didn't really know this was a thing. Thanks to the poster below me.

Psimitry fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Sep 15, 2013

# ? Sep 15, 2013 01:02

voltron: Nov 26, 2000; Zapf gave me this account because he's a friend of the Indian-American people.

Here's my EVO 250GB on SATA3 with Rapid disabled.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 02:43

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

^^Technically this is in the OP, but it's buried so deeply in the middle of a bloc of TL;DR I don't blame you for not seeing it, I just now noticed it's there after about a year.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 03:46

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Psimitry posted:

Running an AMD Athlon 2 760 (don't laugh - I got it dirt cheap (yes, it was new)).

You have two major problems. First is that the drive is too full, make sure you have at least 20% free at all times or performance will fall off a cliff. Second is that AMD-based motherboards have very limited SATA performance compared to Intel chipsets. Update to the latest BIOS (only if memory tests pass), ensure AHCI is enabled (see OP for how to change this if it's not), and install the latest AHCI drivers from the AMD website.

Note that the above should cause very low benchmarks but not actual issues. Do verify that the system can complete a few passes of Memtest86+ without errors.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 16:46

Psimitry: Jun 3, 2003; Hostile negotiations since 1978

Alereon posted:

You have two major problems. First is that the drive is too full, make sure you have at least 20% free at all times or performance will fall off a cliff. Second is that AMD-based motherboards have very limited SATA performance compared to Intel chipsets. Update to the latest BIOS (only if memory tests pass), ensure AHCI is enabled (see OP for how to change this if it's not), and install the latest AHCI drivers from the AMD website.

Note that the above should cause very low benchmarks but not actual issues. Do verify that the system can complete a few passes of Memtest86+ without errors.

Psimitry posted:

so I ran a full 24 hours in Memtest86+ without an error.

As for the AHCI, yes, it's enabled. BIOS is current as of last month. I'm planning on upgrading to an Intel unit shortly, was just curious as it seems like this SSD is a lot slower than SSDs I've had in the past (to be fair though, that was an old OCZ Vertex 3 on a mobile Core i7 laptop).

Uninstalled some games. Now at 29% free.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 20:08

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Psimitry posted:

As for the AHCI, yes, it's enabled. BIOS is current as of last month. I'm planning on upgrading to an Intel unit shortly, was just curious as it seems like this SSD is a lot slower than SSDs I've had in the past (to be fair though, that was an old OCZ Vertex 3 on a mobile Core i7 laptop).

Uninstalled some games. Now at 29% free.

Hurr I read good. The most important bit was the free space, at <20% free it definitely will be slower than a Vertex 3. The other important bit is the latest drivers from the AMD website, there were significant improvments in SATA throughput that came in BIOS updates, so if you're using the MS AHCI driver or an older AMD driver you're leaving a lot of performance on the table.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 20:12

invid: Dec 19, 2002

http://imgur.com/Femn1Qi

Is it even worth the update? How should I go about it?

# ? Sep 15, 2013 20:16

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

invid posted:

http://imgur.com/Femn1Qi

Is it even worth the update? How should I go about it?

Yes, the new firmware improves performance so you would want to apply it. What drive and motherboard do you have? The most common cause of that issue is having the drive connected to the wrong SATA port, having AHCI disabled, or not having the correct chipset and AHCI drivers installed. If you have an Intel chipset motherboard like most people, make sure the drive is NOT connected to a secondary SATA600 controller, make sure AHCI is enabled in the BIOS (if not you will have to do the registry change mentioned in the OP first), and that the latest Intel Chipset INF Drivers and Rapid Storage Technology software from the Intel website are installed.

# ? Sep 15, 2013 22:04

Psimitry: Jun 3, 2003; Hostile negotiations since 1978

Alereon posted:

Hurr I read good. The most important bit was the free space, at <20% free it definitely will be slower than a Vertex 3. The other important bit is the latest drivers from the AMD website, there were significant improvments in SATA throughput that came in BIOS updates, so if you're using the MS AHCI driver or an older AMD driver you're leaving a lot of performance on the table.

Probably irrelevant anyway. I'm picking up a Haswell i5 in the next month or so. So that should be fun (looking forward to my little mini-itx Haswell with nVidia GTX760 and Samsung 840 pro. Should be quite the screamer).

# ? Sep 16, 2013 06:00

Costello Jello: Oct 24, 2003; It had to start somewhere

Psimitry posted:

Probably irrelevant anyway. I'm picking up a Haswell i5 in the next month or so. So that should be fun (looking forward to my little mini-itx Haswell with nVidia GTX760 and Samsung 840 pro. Should be quite the screamer).

What mini-ITX case are you getting?

# ? Sep 16, 2013 07:39

Psimitry: Jun 3, 2003; Hostile negotiations since 1978

Costello Jello posted:

What mini-ITX case are you getting?

BitFenix Prodigy.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 08:13

deimos: Nov 30, 2006; Forget it man this bat is whack, it's got poobrain!

That's an mATX case that only lets you put in an mITX to be honest, my SG10 is smaller than a Prodigy.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 16:01

Psimitry: Jun 3, 2003; Hostile negotiations since 1978

deimos posted:

That's an mATX case that only lets you put in an mITX to be honest, my SG10 is smaller than a Prodigy.

I considered the sg10, but I still need a 5.25" Bay which it didn't have. I might get an external adapter for it, time will tell.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 17:13

Vex Thunder: Dec 12, 2005; FAT TIRE Amber Ale's appeal is in its feat of balance: toasty, biscuit-like malt flavors coasting in equilibrium with hoppy freshness.

I just bought a Samsung 840 non-pro out of impulse.

Wish I would have read the thread a bit more thoroughly first.

Oh well it shipped already so no turning back now.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 23:50

kill your idols: Sep 11, 2003; by T. Finninho

Vex Thunder posted:

I just bought a Samsung 840 non-pro out of impulse.

Wish I would have read the thread a bit more thoroughly first.

Oh well it shipped already so no turning back now.

I owned 2 of these a few months back. While it's not the "FASTEST OMG LOLZ" drive on the market, as long as you got a decent deal, I won't be all that bent over it. You could always just return it, or flip it on eBay for a few bucks lose and grab one of the ones mentioned here after. I doubt this year's Black Friday deals will have much of the SSD market in mind, BUT I won't slit my wrists over getting a non-pro Samsung; they are still great drives.

Return it, or flip it.

# ? Sep 17, 2013 00:44

Vex Thunder: Dec 12, 2005; FAT TIRE Amber Ale's appeal is in its feat of balance: toasty, biscuit-like malt flavors coasting in equilibrium with hoppy freshness.

Thanks.

I think I'll just keep it. Guess it would be a nice introduction into the world of SSDs.

# ? Sep 17, 2013 00:49

uhhhhahhhhohahhh: Oct 9, 2012

If the drive you got is 120GB or higher then you have nothing to worry about

# ? Sep 17, 2013 02:20

Vex Thunder: Dec 12, 2005; FAT TIRE Amber Ale's appeal is in its feat of balance: toasty, biscuit-like malt flavors coasting in equilibrium with hoppy freshness.

uhhhhahhhhohahhh posted:

If the drive you got is 120GB or higher then you have nothing to worry about

Yup. It's a 250gb. Cool.

# ? Sep 17, 2013 04:05

Xenomorph: Jun 13, 2001

Anyone have SandForce 2281 firmware changelog?

They're up to 5.2.0, at least (August 2013?). I've only seen changelogs up to 5.0.7.

Mushkin provides 5.0.7. SanDisk provides 5.0.4. OWC posted 5.2.0 a few days ago. The big TRIM issue was patched in 5.0.3, I believe, but I still want to make sure I have the most bug-free experience.

# ? Sep 17, 2013 15:36

whatupdet: Aug 13, 2004; I'm sorry John, I don't remember

Is there any issue with having a SSD drive near capacity? I've got a 2-3 year old 60GB Corsair SSD as my OS on Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and only have 7-9GB free. I've thought about upgrading but figured I'm probably throwing away money that I needn't.

# ? Sep 17, 2013 15:44

Factory Factory: Mar 19, 2010; This is what
Arcane Velocity was like.

Yes, a nearly full drive (90% static data) will have 4x to 10x write amplification, sending performance to poo poo and burning through the drive's write endurance in no time flat.

# ? Sep 17, 2013 17:25

Agrikk: Oct 17, 2003; Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.

Can someone please explain to me the difference between these two model numbers for Samsung 840 Pro series drives?

mz-7pd512hagm vs MZ-7PD512bw

I'm seeing the -HAGM model selling for over a hundred dollars less than the -BW model, yet both appear to be 840 Pros. I am clearly missing something and googling the -HAGM sends me to a bunch of eBay links.

# ? Sep 17, 2013 19:39

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 13:51

whatupdet: Aug 13, 2004; I'm sorry John, I don't remember

Factory Factory posted:

Yes, a nearly full drive (90% static data) will have 4x to 10x write amplification, sending performance to poo poo and burning through the drive's write endurance in no time flat.

Oops, I didn't realize that was bad as I've been near full capacity for quite some time now. I'll pick up the Samsung 840 Pro 128GB as per the OP and sell the 60GB.

Thanks

# ? Sep 17, 2013 20:19

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The SSD Megathread - Don't buy OCZ/Toshiba, Kingston, or Crucial drives, read the OP

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